So what’s happened in a week? Not a great deal really. Lots of stories of heated discussions on the training ground with home truths being told apparently yielding a response from the players which is all well and good but if actually quite like to see a response on the pitch, as I’m sure others would do to.
In the way today are Crystal Palace who are now under the stewardship of former Magpie boss Alan Pardew allowing a section of fans the chance to hero worship him up close and personal after spending all week reading the history he’ll have no doubt been rewriting.
It’s ‘no win’ for McClaren today. Not that I’m his largest fan, he will find himself either preciding over a victory which shpuld be expected as despite our struggles some seem to think we are still a club that should be beating the likes of Crystal Palace. Or we lose and it will be a case of Alan Pardew getting one over on his former club which – just to clarify – he was absolutely awful at doing just that during his time with United.
Team news today will be provided by my good self and I shall look to get it published shortly after 2pm. You’ll find it at the bottom of this article.
If it’s a stream you’re looking for then your best bet will be to have a look in the ‘comments’ section as there are regular contributors who will gladly share links to watch the game.
After last week, and Bournemouth, the performance needs to be much better. Palace may have lost to Sunderland but Pardew’s side didn’t deserve that and played much better than the results suggest. We’ll need to be sokid at the back, strong in the middle and clinical up front if we are to get anything from this one.
Howay the lads!
Crystal Palace: Wayne Hennessey, Joel Ward, Scott Dann, Damien Delaney, Papa Souare, James McArthur, Yohan Cabaye, Wilfried Zaha, Jason Puncheon, Yannick Bolasie, Connor Wickham
Subs: Julian Speroni, Martin Kelly, Joe Ledley, Mile Jedinak, Lee Chung-Yong, Marouane Chamakh, Patrick Bamford
Newcastle: Rob Elliot, Paul Dummet, Chancel Mbemba, Fabricio Coloccini, Daryl Janmaat, Georginio Wijnaldum, Vurnon Anita, Jack Colback, Moussa Sissoko, Ayoze Perez, Papiss Cisse
Subs: Karl Darlow, Jamie Sterry, Yoan Gouffran, Jamaal Lascelles, Siem de Jong, Florian Thauvin, Aleksandar Mitrovic
So only 190 goals in the last 3 years. That’s 1.66 per game. We are on a laser guided course to beat that this year with 30 after 14 = 2.14 per game. Come home Ugly John, I forgive you 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
G2: I dated Warren Buffett’s next door neighbour for a year. He is a weird and wonderful character. He lives in a 4 bedroom house on the corner of a street in Omaha. He has Bill Gates over to play bridge. His wife left him to take up a career as a lounge singer in San Francisco but set him up with their house cleaner so he would have someone to f2ck. The ex-wife and him went to parties for 10 years together afterwards to keep up appearances and Ingrid (the house cleaner) cleaned the house. I am not kidding about this.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Stuart: Career opportunities, the ones that never knock. Every job they offer you is to keep you out of dock. Bus Driver? Ambulance Man? Ticket Inspector?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Career. Career. Career opportunities. The ones that never knock. And Charlie don’t surf either.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Phwar! An outbreak of politics on the blog. Why am I not surprised that Stuart is a right wing establishment floozy. We already know he handkinds himself to sleep with newspapers and now we see his analysis of poverty is to blame the poor. No doubt he’s a climate change skeptic, a creationist sympathiser and thinks refugees are undercover ISIS agents.
Brisvegas(Quote)
http://www.themag.co.uk/2015/11/one-man-to-blame-at-newcastle-who-is-missing-most-of-the-flak-graham-carr-newcastle-united/?
for once this dudes spot on
TOONARMYELITE(Quote)
Asking questions are truly good thing if you are not
understanding anything completely, except this post offers
pleasant understanding even.
마루타(Quote)
Good old Pardew stuffed it right up your wrongins 😆
Troy Stavers(Quote)
It just shows what little you know about football. YKWYA 😆
Troy Stavers(Quote)
How foolish do you all look now. 😉
Troy Stavers(Quote)
What now Troysta. You said Pards was average at best and wanted rid if we lost to Leicester last year. YKWYA.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I am sick of saying this now but wanting rid of Pardew did not mean we should accept Carver or McClaren as replacements.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
11 teams fighting for the top 8 positions, but there’s a long way to go yet. There’s now a 6 point gap between 11th and 12th. But anything can happen in this world – whey, man, if people can believe that multinationals are nuturing caring institutions anything is possible.
This is shaping up as a more interesting league than the real one. Certainly the football is better to watch. 😆
1 Alestars 34
2 Balotellitubbies 30
3 Newbriscastle Roar 28
4 Born Winner FC 27
5 Dubai Toon United 27
6 Macas Pony and Trap 26
7 Natalie Sawyer Fan 24 (729)
8 Puff Puff Pass 24 (722)
9 Nik Nak Utd 24 (687)
10 Joshua 24 (668)
11 Shamrocking It 24 (630)
Down among the dead men CCFC is making a good fist of rising from the ashes, while hitman’s lot lost again and Aussie Mags are playing songs from the Easybeats.
16 Dem warriors 14
17 hitmans army 12
18 Axel’s cloggs 12
19 Aussie Mags 9
20 CC FC 7
Brisvegas(Quote)
Actually Bris, hasn’t it been proved that a couple of the Paris terrorists came into Europe as a refugee on false passports…
Anyway football. We have lost by more than 3 goals ten times in 2015. That’s staggering! We now have to win nearly 40% of our games to get to 40 points and stay up. Not likely. Goodbye Premiership!!
Stuart79(Quote)
Is SM gone wrong in the heed he says they are doing the “right” things 🙄
icedog(Quote)
All those damned muslims have false passports, mate, supplied by the aliens who are trying to overthrow the one true world government. You should know that. 😆
Brisvegas(Quote)
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-uniteds-recruitment-policy-killing-10522546
kimtoon(Quote)
Ashley sacked JFK for not getting enough money for Cabaye and being totally incompetent, so surely he is having the same thoughts about the ‘board’ now. They’ve wasted a load of money and appointed a failed coach yet again after nearly costing us our PL place last season.
Stuart79(Quote)
what a bunch of useless bastards we have running the club….
stevie mac must have thought his lottery numbers had come up when he was appointed the head coach and a seat on the board.
he hasn’t stopped grinning like a cheshire cat since.
the only way is to stay away.
roy cropper(Quote)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34958885?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_match_of_the_day&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=sport
NOT doing anything wrong? NO need to panic? **** me Schteve has lost it. Puts Pardew’s excuses to shame 😳 But I suppose he might be right about not panicking – that would imply our players had energy enough to panic – but judging on their recent turnouts they’ve got no energy whatsoever! These training sessions are simply sublime, Schteve.
Act now and maybe we can still salvage this train wreck of a season.
Newkie(Quote)
When does Jabba think we will be under threat of relegation? Maybe when we need to win 100% of our games and not just. 40% like it is now…
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu, It took him the last game of the season to raise his head above the wall last time. This season he has no Jonas or any player with half Jonas heart to carry us to safety, someone needs to let him in on this fact before his cash cow sails off into the abyss. 🙄
kimtoon(Quote)
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-media-watch-redknapp-believes-10523870
kimtoon(Quote)
I bet Cathro is regretting leaving Valencia for Newcastle now – his replacement Phil Neville is now in charge there with Nuno quitting this weekend.
Sharpy17(Quote)
McClaren will turn things around. Ashley is very intelligent at running a football club. Just ask TDS for more positive insight about the club.
Stem(Quote)
Apparently wor long serving tea lady retired recently. I hope what we’re looking for now is a strapping, young tea lady to help with the player fongings. What we need is a 6 foot three tea lady weighing aboot 15 stone waiting at the entrance to the dressing room with her fong bat held high.
GeordieTwo(Quote)
This is obviously a cunning plan by McLaren Stem mate. We hide in the weeds in 19th place and then suddenly we win 10 in a row and spring up the table!! It’s coming any time now. I can feel it. 😆
GeordieTwo(Quote)
I’m just going to assume we’re going to win 10 in a row and everything is actually fine at the club. That must be what Ashley is doing after all….. 🙁
GeordieTwo(Quote)
Let’s see…..just doing a quick calculation here. We have shipped 30 goals in 14 games. So that would be….. errrmmmm 81 goals in 38 games! That would be a new record for the club I believe! Huzzah!!! Can we have some silverware with that engraved on it to give Steve at the end of the season?
GeordieTwo(Quote)
G2: I already did that calculation for you man @369 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Newkie @470 – I hope they don’t act now, they didn’t when Pardew only just managed the keep us in the league and they didn’t last season when Carver only just managed to keep us in the league.
I don’t want the fat **** to pocket 100 and odd million through just scrapping by AGAIN!!.
He came out before the WHU game with all these promises and suggestions of success – and this is what we get.
I really hope that fans stay away at the weekend. I know they won’t, but even the die hard insane ones who tip up regardless and can bring themselves to sit through 90 mins of that ***** – they could watch it on Sky. I bet 30-40k walked out before the full time whistle against Leicester and the stadium looked bare. The fans have to show that this isn’t what they buy their season tickets for – a 3rd relegation battle in a row … and this one looks like it could be fatal.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Oops, sorry about that Eric mate. Still it’s nice to see it again just to remind us. We’re off to our poorest start in 123 years. We won’t get to say that too often either!
GeordieTwo(Quote)
In an effort to help the club I’m doing interviews for the position of club tea lady.
G2: come in, come in. And have a seat. Hi Tillie. Just looking at the old resume here. Hmmmm you say you’ve done some professional wrestling and boxing. Excellent. You like to lead with your left and then deliver a killer groin punch? Excellent….. You’re willing to take the tea lady position on then Tillie. How do you feel aboot serving a bunch of lazy knackers then?
Tillie: well G2 they won’t be lazy knackers once I get me hands on them. Anybody not pulling his weight gets a seeing to straight off. Thick ears all round I say.
G2: Excellent Tillie, when can you start?
GeordieTwo(Quote)
So reports are that the club don’t want to spend in January and they will probably need to sell to buy… Oops! Back to normal then.
Deserves to go down if that’s the plan.
Rumour has it McClaren will get until Christmas which is basically the Villa game. Jesus, if we can’t beat them we might as well forfeit all our games and just go to the fizzy.
Stuart79(Quote)
Eric
I.kept warning you that Ashley would appoint the cheap option if Pards left. What did you expect? Morinho?
Of course you didn’t want Carver or McLaren. Nobody did. But anyone with a modicum of sense could see what was yo come. Only a few on here saw it. You couldn’t see it. Says it all. You’ve brought all this onto my club. I blame you.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Stuart, do we not have to get rid of players before we sign anybody to keep the squad size at 25?
Groucho(Quote)
I don’t think that’s the reason why they need to sell to buy. Although I think we have a couple of spaces spare anyway.
Stuart79(Quote)
rumour has it, that Lee Charnley is suffering from a touch of depression, and wants out.
Unfortunately, his boss has his knackers secured in a vice and is reluctant to let him go anywhere anytime soon. 😉
Beardsleys Boots(Quote)
Sharpy – the one season where we finished 16th with Pardew we also played up until the quarters of the Europa league and actually didn’t have a bad go at it, and we’d only brought in Anita (****). So I do feel that alleviates things and Ashley was right not to pull the trigger that point. Footie was **** but tablewise it was acceptable – especially if we are to believe that the entire squad we have right now is basically the worst in the league as some are suggesting.
Like you say, people aren’t going to stop. People can change their mind and start thinking relegation is a good thing (a fair few wanted it last season so I guess want the same again?) but I don’t think it will get rid of him and I don’t like seeing my side lose every week. I actually hate it.
Honestly I just want us to get a new manager and scrape by. Because I think things have gotten so bad that people might actually start confronting Ashley with real threats of violence, it has actually gotten that bad and there are some nutters among us. But maybe that will at least convince the fat **** to do one and then everyone will calm down….yeah right.
Newkie(Quote)
well we wont raise very much cash by selling our bunch of no hopers.
So I can only assume we are preparing for life out of the top flight, and flogging off our prize assets on big wages.
Horse well and truly bolted, unfortunately it wasn’t attached to the cart before it did so.
Doh !!!!
Beardsleys Boots(Quote)
I can’t believe the club won’t invest. We may very well sell someone as no doubt people like Perez are completely ****** off by inept management and would clearly benefit by playing in a real team for a real club where players actually improve. But I just can’t believe Ashley won’t invest. If we’re going to keep this joker of a manager we need investment, so it’s one or the other really.
More likely is that the club are lowering expectations, as they seem to do before every window, (yes apparently that is possible) so when we buy one or two we’re “appeased” and told how great we are for hanging on to our players.
Newkie(Quote)
It certainly wouldn’t be enough to buy what we need just to give us a chance of survival.
Centre half, centre midfielder and striker.
Stuart79(Quote)
Newkie – Some suggested it was because they’re not sure McClaren will be there but our transfer policy is such that it really doesn’t matter who the boss is as they don’t have a say.
Personally I think if it goes tits up and they sack McClaren it will also be the end of the stupid ‘head coach’ set up and we will appoint a manager like Moyes who can actually build the club. The current set up just isn’t working..
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu – yeah exactly, if our coach has no say then it shouldn’t matter, no doubt we have some targets anyway. Even then, just giving us a few more options, even if they aren’t the new guys men will at least give some options if weg got a new manager in say feb (although I hope not as that’d be too late for us).
We need to clear certain individuals out in almost every position – so bringing in a few new faces shouldn’t be an issue if they aren’t the new managers top choice, we can change that when we aren’t in immediate threat of relegation…Like you say, fingers crossed it ends this pathetic set up. Pointless trying to improve our players if we don’t invest in a proper coaching system like Saints anyway.
Newkie(Quote)
That’s the bizarre thing about all this, Newkie. The fact that Ashley’s transfer policy is based on bringing players in young, improving them and selling them at a profit. But for some quite bizarre reason Ashley only appoints coaches/managers who are out of work and bang average. Surely you would invest in the best coach which would give you a better chance of improving players and making money on them.
Stuart79(Quote)
He’s just a cheap skate at the end of the day, knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
kimtoon(Quote)
Well we’ll find out who we get in the FA Cup this year soon. I reckon our name is on it this year. 😆
DJG(Quote)
With one month left, unless we beat Villa, we are on course to have won 5 games in the whole of 2015 calendar year. That has to be some sort of club record, surely? It was only because we won five-in-a-row in Nov/Dec that we survived.
DJG(Quote)
Stuart – I can only thing he is a big fan of Football Manager, where if your scout tells you a player is going to be 5* then all you need to do is force him to play, and he will eventually be worth 30 million regardless of your coaches 😐
DJG @497 😆 Well Schteve has promised to give it a good go this year, let’s see what happens!!
Newkie(Quote)
So this is what i’d do! Go 442 in formation. Play Anita, MBemba, Colo and Dummet as back four. Play Janmaat, Sissoko, Wijnaldum and Colbeck in midfield. Play De Jong and Mitro up front. Give Sissoko and Mitro a kick up the **** and tell them to play like their lives depended on it! Give De Jong captaincy!
Jill(Quote)
Do you know that Schteve’s last win for Derby was February 24th? Is it time to panic yet?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Jill: I think it is time that the club realise that they made a mistake with Coloccini and drop him. Mbabu is right footed and is a right back even though he played an emergency left back. I also don’t see what Perez has done to be dropped. We could try this because we have to try something:
Elliot
MBabu MBemba Dummett Colback
Janmaat Sissoko Wijnaldum Perez
Mitrovic de Jong
If we are getting beat 3-0 and 5-1 anyway then go all out attack. What was McClaren thinking bringing on another centre back? SURRENDER. But don’t panic 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Troysta: you have to let Pardew go. He left you, and frankly I think this fetish you have for him is unhealthy. Take a few deep breaths and let it go. I will e-mail you a book on bereavement that might help you cope.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Eric & Jill I agree, big change needed, Eric I do like your set up as I would be dropping Colo for sure.
kimtoon(Quote)
As wrong as Steve has got it, I firmly believe that those players put their tools down last week. They don’t believe in him imo, it’s disgusting to go out and play like that, where is their professional pride for heavens sake.
kimtoon(Quote)
They played the same for Carver and Lardew at times. Maybe they don’t like being coached by average coaches?
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu – they did indeed, and I’m glad people are coming more and more around to that realisation than just pointing the finger at the coach. But Pardew was able to string wins together and at least pick up some very unlikely points. Can Schteve really do the same? Well Liverpool and Spurs up next, the perfect opportunity for him 🙂
Newkie(Quote)
I still can’t accept that these players we have are that poor. No way should we be 2nd bottom! Our poor seasons since Ashley bought us is down to his selection of coaches imo. We have completely underachieved because the players are always poorly coached, as well as **** poor squad management.
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu, you may well be right but if you are then we are doomed for sure, because the next coach will also be average, history has taught us that much.
kimtoon(Quote)
Eric @ 502. Why bring on a centre back? So he could do something like what your team tries to do – that is, play Janmaat further forward and have Anita cover the right if need be. The idea was to push Gini further forward to link up with Cisse while also giving width to counter the Palace wingers.
Obviously it didn’t work, but he tried something different. It wasn’t surrender, au contraire, it was attack-minded.
Brisvegas(Quote)
BrisV: did we have 4 centre backs on the field when Lascelles came on? I count him, Coloccini, Mbemba and Dummett. That’s an attack minded team 🙂
He also replaced Perez who he was praising last week about his understanding with Mitrovic.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Dummett was left back. He also would have been expected to go further forward. But I suspect not as much as he isn’t much good at doing that.
Brisvegas(Quote)
I presume also that he thought Gini could do a better job than Perez in the role he saw.
Brisvegas(Quote)
Stu – they aren’t that poor, completely agree with you. Nobody was saying they were the worst in the league this time last year, and we have the same players, with several notable upgrade from then and players like Perez have had a year to get used to the league now. Schteve has just brought his own specialisms in failure and merged them into what Carver managed to do to our comfortable mid table position last year.
Newkie(Quote)
BrisV: if you didn’t think that was a damage limitation strategy, I don’t know what you are thinking. McClaren didn’t play the player he mentioned as building his team around 3 weeks ago (Mitrovic), and took off Perez who has at least tried to score.
Where were the goals going to come from in this wonderful (imaginary) attacking formation of 4 centre backs? I think Colo has scored about 3 in 5 years, Mbemba none, Dummett 1 and Lascelles 0.
If you are down by 2 or 3 goals it doesn’t seem very logical to take off one of your main attacking threats. Playing Gouffran in mid-field against Man City was another masterstroke. I didn’t think it could get any more stupid than Carver, but…
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I mean, rather than bring on another centre back schteve could have played Perez as an attacking midfieder and moved Wijnaldum to number 10. The last 3 coaches/managers have all said Dummett is a centre back so I still count that as 4 on the field (they all insisted on playing him out of position though, he is even slower than Coloccini).
Eric Sykes(Quote)
What I was thinking is that SM has some football nouse and was trying to turn things around. Something coaches and managers try to do – in real time, under pressure. And I’ve tried to make some sense of it.
But I guess greater wisdom resides in those who sit in armchairs and watch games in retrospect.
Brisvegas(Quote)
Also BrisV: it is quite comical that you are trying to defend the “strategy” when it failed so badly. Yeah, great idea to completely change the shape of the team and have something that has never been tried before. Worked about as well as Gouffy as a defensive midfielder. There is a big difference between being innovative and being stupid.
I feel like it is groudhog day.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I’m not defending it; I’m reflecting on it.
Brisvegas(Quote)
BrisV: don’t you also sit in an armchair and comment on the game? I wasn’t the one who set up teams to score 1 and concede 8 in the last 2 games. There lies the great wisdom of someone who obviously collapses under pressure. Derby did not win a game after February 24th. We have won 2. There is a common thread here.
I wanted to give McClaren a chance but he is proving himself to be *****. He is both ***** at tactics and ***** at motivation and ***** at explaining his selections. He even brings in a motivational coach who is also ***** 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
And BrisV: you are allowed to have an opinion from your armchair and I am not? Get a grip man.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Perhaps so. But I always think it is worth trying to understand things rather than resorting to bitching.
Brisvegas(Quote)
You can have an opinion. I have no qualms about that. I don’t even know why you brought that up.
Brisvegas(Quote)
BrisV: I think we all have a right to “*****” after Saturday and 1 goal scored and 8 against in the last 2 weeks, don’t you?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sure, but I prefer not to. I think it is more constructive to reflect on things and analyse them logically.
Brisvegas(Quote)